US-Iran Analysis: Obama's Policy --- All Tactics, No Strategy? (Farhi)

Both sides are caught in narratives developed not only to antagonize one another, but also to appease their respective domestic audiences. While Obama’s extension of an offer to Iran for direct negotiations without preconditions was initially promising, the U.S. government ultimately reverted to Bush Administration tactics, attempting to exploit Iran’s domestic weakness to obtain concessions in the international arena.  Rather than success, however, this strategy has prompted the Iranian government to counter with strident rhetoric and increased domestic political repression, in the name of defending against foreign intervention in Iranian affairs. So far, the only thing that can be said with confidence about the failed nuclear negotiations is that the real losers in this political game of brinksmanship have been the Iranian, urban middle class and private sector, which have become increasingly unsettled and confused in the face of an economic pinch from abroad and political repression at home.

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The Latest from Iran (16 November): Can the Arrests Be Stopped?

2030 GMT: Un-Diplomatic Behaviour. Well, here's a story to pick up a slow evening. From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

France has accused Iranian security services of committing "unacceptable acts of violence" on French diplomatic personnel in Tehran.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement today that the entry to the French Embassy residence in Tehran was blocked by unidentified officials on November 14.

French officials said plainclothes security officers struck at least two French diplomats and arrested guests arriving at the residence of Ambassador Bernard Poletti for a concert of Persian music.

The statement said that French authorities this morning summoned the Iranian ambassador in Paris "to express their strongest condemnation."

There have been no comments from Tehran on the incident.

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The Latest from Iran (8 November): Talks, Threats, and Sanctions

2050 GMT: Talking Tough (US Edition). The chest-puffing of loud but tangential Senator Lindsay Graham that the US should act against Tehran "not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force, and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard" has not only prompted a torrent of Chicken Little sky-is-falling chatter in Washington circles. It has, equally predictably, brought counter-chest-puffing from the Iranian regime.

Revolutionary Guard Commander Masoud Jazayeri has announced that the US does not know that it is Iran's hostage in the region, while Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei differs: Washington does know about Tehran's clout.

2045 GMT: Talking Tough. Brigadier-General Ahmad Reza Radan, the Deputy Commander of Iran's police, has said violators must be dealt with before start of subsidy cuts.

Radan's declaration is in sharp contrast to the assurance by the Minister of Interior last week that subsidy cuts are a "popular issue and we don't need security measures".

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Afghanistan: Wikileaks and the Pentagon's Deceptive Response

Remember the fuss this summer, after Wikileaks released almost 92,000 documents on the US military intervention in Afghanistan, when the Pentagon and US military said that the primary effect of the published material would be the exposure of troops and those helping the Americans, putting their lives at risk at the hands of the Taliban?

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, spared no words accusing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, "Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." 

At the time --- while not ignoring the possibility --- it felt primarily like a campaign by the Obama Administration and the Department of Defense, not only to limit the damage of the documents but to turn the story into one of Wikileaks' responsibility rather than the complications of American military action. At the start of 2010, the US Government had been slow to respond to Wikileaks' presentation of the "Collateral Murder" video, showing the apparent gunning down of Iraqi civilians by American planes. This time would be different.

This weekend, however, there was a twist in the Obama Administration's tale. A 16 August letter from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Senator Carl Levin, the head of the Armed Services Committee, emerged: "The review [by the Department of Defense] to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by the disclosure."

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Afghanistan: Guards at US Military Bases Linked to Taliban (Risen)

Afghan private security forces with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan, exposing United States soldiers to surprise attack and confounding the fight against insurgents, according to a Senate investigation.

The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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Afghanistan: Endorsing the Pentagon's "Forever War" (Engelhardt)

Tom Engelhardt writes for TomDispatch:

Sometimes it’s the little things in the big stories that catch your eye.  On Monday, the Washington Post ran the first of three pieces adapted from Bob Woodward’s new book Obama’s Wars, a vivid account of the way the U.S. high command boxed the Commander-in-Chief into the smallest of Afghan corners.  As an illustration, the Post included a graphic the military offered President Obama at a key November 2009 meeting to review war policy.  It caught in a nutshell the favored “solution” to the Afghan War of those in charge of fighting it --- Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Petraeus, then-Centcom commander, General Stanley McChrystal, then-Afghan War commander, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others.

Labeled “Alternative Mission in Afghanistan,” it’s a classic of visual wish fulfillment.  Atop it is a soaring green line that represents the growing strength of the notoriously underwhelming “Afghan Forces,” military and police, as they move toward a theoretical goal of 400,000 -- an unlikely “end state” given present desertion rates.  Underneath that green trajectory of putative success is a modest, herky-jerky blue curving line, representing the 40,000 U.S. troops Gates, Petraeus, Mullen, and company were pressuring the president to surge into Afghanistan.

The eye-catching detail, however, was the dating on the chart.  Sometime between 2013 and 2016, according to a hesitant dotted white line (that left plenty of room for error), those U.S. surge forces would be drawn down radically enough to dip somewhere below -- don’t gasp -- the 68,000 level.  In other words, three to six years from now, if all went as planned -- a radical unlikelihood, given the Afghan War so far -- the U.S. might be back close to the force levels of early 2009, before the President’s second surge was launched.

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US Policy on Afghanistan: The Obama Administration's PR Offensive, "We Must, We Must Stay the Course"

For some time, we have been noting the US military's bureaucratic triumph over the President in the escalation of and persistence with the American campaign in Afghanistan, even beyond Barack Obama's nominal withdrawal date of July 2011.

Now the other shoe drops, courtesy of an article by Karen DeYoung in The Washington Post. This time it is the White House putting out the message: despite the growing doubts over the US intervention, despite the rising costs in money and lives, despite the complications of corruption, despite the inconclusive outcome of this week's Parliamentary elections, Washington will --- it must --- carry on.

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